Tag Archive: fiction

So. This year, I have set out to do lots of things to help further my potential writing career. I have joined a wonderful writing community known as Get Your Words Out over at livejournal with my personal journal. It’s what used to be my writing LJ, but with all things, it’s changed and evolved into something else entirely. I still post writing there; it’s just gotten less frequent than the entries that are far more personal and navel-gazing in nature.

Now, over at GYWO, you could pledge to writing various amounts of words over the course of 2015. The number of words I pledged to complete this year is 500k, and as of today, I am just 400 words over the “target” line. I have written 16.8k words so far, this year. Not bad, right?

Except I have writing goals other than simply spitting out 500k words in a 365 day period.

I want to submit at least three pieces to literary magazines. I want to resume my Amazon Self-Published Erotica biz, Erotica Pen Name included, by writing and publishing at least one piece to sell. Most likely, it would be me playing with the “Vicky and Mordecai” storyline, as I have a part 4 that’s been languishing at “half-finished” for about half a year, now. I want to finish the Second Draft of Gray Morning.

If anyone’s been paying attention — back in December, I was wrapping up the first book of my A New Day trilogy. Yes, trilogy. Because between December 23rd and today, January 12th, I not only decided, yes, I’m shelving One Day at a Time despite not having filled in those last 15kish words, but that there was, in fact, another book that took place after Gray Morning.

I wish I could say I wasn’t surprised. But I was. I mean, I sat here and began writing Gray Morning a few days before January 1st. It’s at approximately 24k words total. I think at about 15k in, I looked up from my screen, my eyes widening and me whispering, “Oh, no,” to myself. Because I realized that there was no way Gray Morning would be a satisfactory ending to the storyline. That there definitely was more storyline to explore, after a certain protagonist’s death.

But I have never seriously thought about plot-related things after Gray Morning either. At the same time, though, the world Jazz and Savin now inhabit has undergone so many changes. It’s not the same that it used to be. They’re not the same that they used to be. I mean, okay, they’re still themselves, and their story is still theirs, but just like me and their world, they evolve, too. They experience growth and change (and they should, if they’re going to be well-rounded characters).

I want 2015 to be a good year. I want it to be the best year. I want to get into a routine, I want to find a way to write for at least an hour every day, so I can try to stay on top of my word counts. I want to set aside larger blocks of time to get caught up when lack of sleep and time inevitably tank the lead I have on my goals at present. I want to finish this damn trilogy and begin editing it and reworking parts and finally know all of the pieces to it.

My best friend thought I might be pushing myself a little too hard when I mentioned that I wanted to finish the 8-10 novel ideas I have in my head at present before I turn 30. I turn 30 in approximately three years. That’s roughly 3-4 novels a year. 3-4 months spent on one novel at a time.

Doable. As long as I can, in fact, write for an hour every day. I also want to work on finding an agent and building my “platform” and getting myself out there.

Who knows. Maybe I’ll be on my way to a publishing contract in another couple of years or so.

So this morning I decided I was going to work on the next piece of the Say What You Want series. This will definitely be the last piece. And I’m not entirely sure how it ends — though I suspect the characters will inform me soon, since I’m roughly 2.5k into this chunk already. I struggled a bit getting started, though.

I’ve been struggling again, in terms of writing, anyway. Once I get enough inertia, I’m good, but over the weekend it was a struggle to hit 750 words on Saturday and on Sunday I scraped together 300, with three separate 100 word drabbles. Life is hectic. I was out with the local high school marching band all day Saturday; the words I wrote were all written while I was on the bus. And they weren’t very good words, either. Oh well.

I still haven’t quiiite figured out things for Gray Morning, which I think is going to have a title change to Seize the Day. I don’t see it being a trilogy anymore — Ryin’s story and dropping aspects of the world that pertained mostly to him (Natural Borns, and the genetic engineering, etc) seemed to cut the overall story quite short. Which is fine — I don’t mind it. I prefer stand-alone novels, anyway.

I’m just undecided whether I want it to BE a stand alone novel, or if it should have a sequel — and if I did a sequel, what the sequel would actually BE about. But, I’m filling the pieces together. And I really, really want this to be my NaNo project. And then after I finish this book, I’ll move on to finishing Stellar. Once Stellar is finished, I’ll go back and edit Seize the Day. Or well, maybe not editing it, but reading through it, picking out which pieces need to be changed and making revision notes. It’ll be a bit tedious, but I want to go the traditional publishing route with these novels. Once I’m done with making notes for Seize the Day, I’ll do the same thing for Stellar.

In the meantime, I’m also going to have to balance those projects and my erotica, not to mention the short stories I’ll also be attempting to get published. All while likely managing a part-time job on top of it all. It’s going to be work. It’s going to be tough. But I know I can do it, and I know that I’ll find a way to push through all of the obstacles that are in front of me. Writing is my passion. It’s what I really, truly want to do with my life, and I will make it work.

I want my writing income to become my primary source of income. Of course, learning to balance the writing job and the part-time real world job and the childrearing job is going to be exceptionally difficult. But, I will find a system that works for me. The goal is 50k words a month from here on out. More is great! But that’s what I want out of me, minimum. In 75 minutes, I can write 2000-2500 words — that’s what I did today. So I need to set that aside every day. Or twice that, every other day.

Sometimes, I just have to accept that when it comes to writing a story for the first time, I have no idea what’s going to happen in it, at all.

Take Vicky & Mordecai, for example. I started it as almost a “FUCK YOU!” to the billionaire erotica genre that exploded thanks to Fifty Shades of Gray. Same basic premise (billionaire dude who’s into BDSM picks up main character chick). Except my dude? Apparently actually abusive. I know that BDSM relationships themselves aren’t, this man just uses it as an excuse to be abusive, but not physically so.

Naturally, when this came to light, I decided that my protagonist was going to eventually leave this man, instead of staying in her relationship with him in an effort to “fix” him. Because I hate that, so much. So this part, I was supposed to writer growing doubts, maybe have a hot sex scene or two, but really? She was supposed to start really making the decision to leave.

This…kind of happens. Enter a third character:

Jennifer Watson.

Jennifer Watson is one of Mordecai’s secretaries that he hired for legit reasons. She also becomes the one who outright points out how Mordecai’s treatment of his “companions” is sort of fucked up. She’s also a lesbian.

…You can see where I’m going with this, right? Of course, Vicky’s fascinated with her almost right away. While some of my story isn’t necessarily believable, I’ve basically set it up that Mordecai’s whole home office is aware of his proclivities. But Vicky’s also not really allowed to socialize with her coworkers.

But I just — I never expected for another challenger to appear and I especially didn’t expect it to be a woman. Not that I’m against writing femslash, I just — well, okay, I’ve never really written femslash before? And look, female body parts are annoying to describe in smut which is why I like, kinda avoided writing any f/f scenes. But uhhh, it’s where the story wants to go, so I will take it there.

Also, this part had so much sex in it it kinda surprised me/exhausted me on writing smut for a little while. But I’ll likely edit it over the weekend and get it up and ready for sale on Amazon by Tuesday at the latest.

One of these days my own writing won’t surprise me. One of these damn days…

With NaNoWriMo just around the corner, I told myself I was going to figure everything I needed to figure out about the Tomorrow Trilogy prior to resuming writing any of Seize the Day. I’ve spoken to a couple of other writers in an effort to get the ol’ brain moving.

Ryin IS getting removed. So is the Natural Born subplot. That leaves me with focusing on Jazz, Savin, and Mitchel. The Empire? Stays. Jazz can be next in line like Ryin was; he could also be eschewing his duties as next in line, in favor of living a life he’d prefer to live. Except as the story progresses, he’ll get more and more involved in politics.

A friend of mine, Jen from Just Another Blog, suggested doing one big outline that’s composed of all of the major points from across the whole series. It was something I already intended on doing, because I need to have a good grasp of this so I can figure out where Gray Morning really fits in. She also suggested that maybe that was the first book. I informed my other writerly friend Sarah from A Place that Does Not Exist of this idea, who was like maaaaaaaaybe that could work compared to my OH FUCK NO.

…Yes, I sometimes have harsh reactions. I can be stubborn, especially when it comes to this particular series. Gray Morning was never intended to be book #1. Too much of Jazz and Savin’s backstory would simply get brushed aside and crammed in if it was.

However, I started my outlining process by attempting to figure out the character/relationship related story-lines, first. Not necessarily in any order, because that’s not how these things come to me at times, but the character stuff is the backdrop that’ll determine the Empire-related stuff. I’m not big on symbolism, but the Empire has ALWAYS represented the progression of Jazz and Savin’s relationship to me, especially in Gray Morning when everything is falling apart.

There’s also Jazz’s history with Mitchel, and Savin’s (lack of) knowledge of it, because those things are vital to Savin and Mitchel’s antagonistic relationship. And Sarah presented a good question to me — just how much of it do I need to show? Do I really need to show Jazz and Mitchel’s relationship from the beginning, or can I start towards the end of it? Do I have to show the whole progression of Jazz and Savin’s relationship?

For Jazz and Mitchel, starting at the end of it is probably best. Jazz, of course, is still struggling with his role in the Empire at that point. He’s only (some age between 25 and 28), his Uncle (maybe his father; I’m still undecided about that aspect of things, right now) is pushing him to become more involved with the Empire. Obviously, he doesn’t want to. Politics just isn’t for him; he’s grown up with it since day one and hates it. Not entirely sure how he and Mitchel met, but Mitchel’s ten years older than he is, and has a hefty political career. I’m going to assume they met that way, and started dating.

The big thing with them was that Mitchel never wanted to be “out” about their relationship. Difficult to do when you work together, right? So Jazz is getting to the point where he’s fed up with it. I think this is where Savin enters the picture — how Jazz and Savin meet, I’m not entirely sure. Before it was through a coincidence, but I’m not sure how much I’m liking that, anymore. Or well, not the coincidence I went with, originally, anyway.

I also want to change Savin’s relationship with Mari. Her being his ex isn’t really working with me; or at least, the drama surrounding a previously passed breakup doesn’t sit so well with me, anymore. I do like them being ex’s that had enough time to heal to become great friends; that was their dynamic by the time Gray Morning hit, anyway. Why not just start there?

So I’m slowly figuring these things out, character-wise. I think Jazz doesn’t actually become Emperor until he and Savin are already together, but I think it happens a lot sooner than I planned. Essentially, they get together, Jazz is made Emperor, and then a few months down the line, Jazz proposes. He wants a partner to help him run the Empire; his Council (including Mitchel) isn’t enough help. Those years he spent shunning his responsibilities are catching up to him, and now the Empire is starting to fall apart.

There’s an anti-Empire movement growing, too, by this point. Savin doesn’t know whether he wants to accept Jazz’s proposal — marriage is legal for everyone, but once Savin marries Jazz, he knows his career path is going to take a hit — being the Emperor’s husband (and therefore Emperor, himself) means practicing medicine will be out of the picture. Medicine is Savin’s life. You know how some people throw themselves into work because work is the best thing ever? That’s what medicine is for him. Jazz knows that. Jazz promises Savin he won’t have to give medicine up.

Except things start getting worse; the Resistance has a name, now. And demands for the Empire itself. And Jazz can’t keep his promise to Savin, and —

Well, now I sorta figured out how to get to the meat of Gray Morning‘s story. I guess I needed to story vom a bit. 🙂

As a bonus for following along this far, here’s some of the next part of Vicky & Mordecai. 😉

Like I really don’t get this aspect of my writing routine but there just get to be times where I crave a specific pairing and want to write it all the damn time, even of my own characters. And it’s a little frustrating with THIS particular pairing, because it’s not canon. Ever. EVER.

I have a weakness for antagonistic relationships, okay? The more two characters hate one another in canon, the more I ship it. I just can’t help it. It’s a thing that’s left over from my fandom days — meaning when I was way more active in it. Y’know, when I was 12-15 years old.

Also, I intend to sit down and construct a couple of “How to Write Smut” related blog posts. A friend of mine jokingly suggested I teach him how to write smut, which made me all flustered and blushy because HE IS A BETTER WRITER THAN I AM. I adore this man’s work, I really do. Still don’t have the balls the straight up tell him that but I have mentioned that he was my favorite both times he competed in LJ Idol with me. 😉

One day I’ll be a little more organized. Still getting used to a lot of the major changes going on in my life, right now. It’s been a bumpy ride. Here’s some of that smut I’ll be finding a way to repurpose for my erotica penname, I’m sure…